KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A SWAT team raids a Kalamazoo family home looking for drugs, but turns up empty handed.

It happened last Thursday at a house on Southworth Terrace.

Two young children were home at the time.

Their parents tell us, police made a mistake, and now they're left to cope with the trauma.

The family tells Newschannel 3 the man police were looking for, was renting the home nearly a year before they moved in, and they're upset police didn't do their homework before busting through their door.

"I thought it was somebody either trying to rob us, or hurt us," said Jeremy Handley.

Handley tells us after the KDPS SWAT team busted through his back door, he and his wife Becky were handcuffed and searched.

"He had me sprawl out right here on the floor, and then he had me put my hands behind my back," said Handley.

And Handley's two children, ran and hid in a bedroom closet.

"We were staying quiet, because we thought they were bad guys coming in," said 7-year-old Brenden Handley.

And your kids could see you the whole time? "My kids were sitting on that bed after they got them out of the closet," said Becky Handley.

Jeremy tells us police then ransacked his home. "Every drawer, every cabinet, every piece of paper."

Police gave Handley's children some stuffed animals, but he says they haven't stopped the nightmares..."One dream was about Chum coming in our house with a gun, saying get on the ground," said 8-year-old Aurora Handley.

What good is the warrant if the militarized stormtroopers have already kicked my door down, kicked my head in the dirt, and restrained me? Isn’t that the very process which the Brit army practiced on colonials which the founders wished to prevent?

4
posted on 05/15/2014 3:37:03 PM PDT
by LucianOfSamasota
(Tanstaafl - its not just for breakfast anymore...)

Police NEVER are willing to take responsibility and address this issue. When a bad raid is done, they go home to steak and potatoes. Their VICTIMS go home to nightmares, PTSD, and high priced therapy for their kids.

Maybe if cops had to go home to family destroyed by this, the practice of SWATing for evidence would end.

“made a mistake”
Unacceptable. they put the innocent people in danger. They invaded their privacy. If one of them had used his right to defend himself, he would have been shot.
There is no excuse for “mistakes.”

Just more sheep training for the masses.

baaafreakingbaaa.

14
posted on 05/15/2014 3:48:32 PM PDT
by I want the USA back
(Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country.)

The point of the warrant isn’t to appease or inform the target. The point of a warrant is to get a third party (nevermind that the judges are in cahoots with the cops) to agree there is reasonable cause to invade a person’s home and privacy under force of violence.

In Indiana, the state legislature wrote a law that allows homeowners to meet force with force, if the invasion is unreasonable. The Indiana Supreme Court just flat out ignored the law when it issued a ruling against a person who had (unreasonably) used force. The Indiana legislature was perplexed that it had to pass the law a second time - but there is no guarantee the courts will give effect to the law. Legislatures too rarely use impeachment.

Anyway, my point is that legislation alone is not enough. The judges are out of control too.

No knock raids have warrants. The judges sign off on the request to use SWAT, rather than some other form of search. SWAT for drug searches is probably standard practice, on the grounds that druggies would otherwise flush or dispose of the contraband evidence.

Another tact would be to discover the names of the judge and officers on the raid and make it public by taking ads out in the local newspapers outlining their gross incompetence and malfeasance. Also file a complaint with the judicial review board against the judge and with the state against the police.

27
posted on 05/15/2014 5:25:46 PM PDT
by RetiredTexasVet
(Progressives (communists) lie because their expectations and promises never match reality.)

-- Until Nixon's war on drugs, they served the warrant FIRST, then searched. --

Warrants are and were used in ways that don't involve confronting the target - wiretaps being a good example. The point of the warrant, there, isn't to appease or inform the target.

Sometimes searches are undertaken when the target person isn't in the building.

I have no disagreement that no-knock SWAT raids are far more common now than ever; and I find the practice highly objectionable. As I've said before, my opinion is that a warrant requirement is just a rubber stamp by a judge who always agrees with the cops, i.e., isn't any meaningful protection by an impartial third party. The judges are signing off on the SWAT tactics, too.

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